What level of magic is your campaign?

[Nifft]

Mine is "core D&D", but I consider core D&D to be Darn High Magic.

-- N

 

[Odhanan]

Indeed, D&D's default magic level could be defined as "high magic" already.

"Medium" would be LOTR for me - magical items, spells and wizards do exist, but they aren't everywhere to be seen. Yes, I am conscious that when you read LOTR you see magical stuff and extremely powerful character popping in and out of "frame" constantly, but if you were to run a game in middle-earth with "normal", average characters of the world, it wouldn't be the same, IMO.

 

[VirgilCaine]

Indeed, D&D's default magic level could be defined as "high magic" already.

"Medium" would be LOTR for me - magical items, spells and wizards do exist, but they aren't everywhere to be seen. Yes, I am conscious that when you read LOTR you see magical stuff and extremely powerful character popping in and out of "frame" constantly, but if you were to run a game in middle-earth with "normal", average characters of the world, it wouldn't be the same, IMO.

Medium? LOTR has barely any magical items or magic users that aren't seen in the movies, IIRC. IMO LOTR would be extremely low magic, with a few incursions of powerful creatures (the Balrog, Gandalf, Radagast and Saruman, etc.) Magic items are rare and few in number.

So, yeah, it might "average out" in the movies, but the actual on-the-ground level is very low, almost nonexistent.

---------

I like the Core D&D level of magic, nothing more or less.

Less magic I have an extreme dislike of. I want magic in D&D, whether for PCs or NPCs. It makes things easier for the PCs and for me as a DM.
If you don't like the Core D&D level of magic, you should probably be playing a different system.

More doesn't make much sense (IMO) for Core D&D, given the various limits on magic items (XP), and on casters (spells known/available, trading spells costs money for wizards, etc.).

 

[A'koss]

I like the term "Scarce Magic" myself. Wizards are more like spellswords IMC. Definitely far, far fewer magic items than in core 3e. Permanent magic items exist, but cannot be crafted by mortals. So what magic items there are in the campaign have a lot of history, individual names and highly coveted. More powerful items are rarely stumbled across by chance, and there is usually some greater purpose they serve in the hands of the PCs. Once that purpose is fulfilled, they usually find a way to slip out of their possession.

 

[Ace]

What level of magic would you label your campaign (or the campaign you play in)?

Quasqueton

I run all of the magic amounts --

Low -- which uses class defense bonus and extra feats

Medium -- standard D&D

High -- a later period in my D&D world

I think I prefer Medium/Low

 

[Boojum]

I answered 'something else', because the magic level isn't easily boiled down to a simple low/medium/high. The level of ambient magic and magical creatures in my world is fairly high, and the shape of the world is completely shaped by magical forces. However, the gods are all dead or imprisoned by devils, and most arcane casters were either wiped out by the backlash of a force they summoned a few hundred years ago, sacrificed themselves to save the rest of civilization from that force, or were hunted down and killed when people found out what had happened. This means that divine casters have a hard time getting power and there weren't many teachers around to train new generations of arcanists. Technology largely filled the gap, so although magic is making a recovery, it is not nearly as widespread as usual. This means that there are fewer spellcasters around, but there is no restriction on PCs. In terms of wealth levels, I tend to be somewhat lower than DMG guidelines, but not to an extreme level.

 

[sfedi]

I answered High Magic, although I consider standard D&D High Magic.

I don't know of anyone that allows more magic than the DMG assumes.

 

[Li Shenron]

I think that the results of this poll are quite shocking

That 1/3 of our campaigns are low-magic (although it may have a few different meanings), i.e. less magic that what core D&D is supposed to be, it is IMHO a fairly large share of the total.

To me it says that the taste of playing with less magic than the core should not be disregarded and liquidated with the sentence "play another system if you want less magic", which is quite often the reply one gets when asking for help on how to do that

With this in mind, I bet that if WotC put out a book with a solid "official" way to do this within D&D, that book would sale very well.

 

[Mixmaster]

Voted Low: My players ALWAYS complain that there's "not enough" magic.

 

[TerraDave]

All the campaigns I run, I begin with the intent of making them low magic. The result is a campaign of average D&D magic. If I would begin a campaign with the intent of normal level of D&D magic, I would only end up with a munchkinery of overpowered magical campaign...

Right. What I want to say is "moderate" magic: a level comparable to non-montyhaul 1st or (non Realms) 2nd edition games, reinforced by some small TerraV rules...

...in practice 2 of the 3 PCs are spell casters, they have more magic treasure then advised by the DMG, there is a magic shop in the village, they run into magical sites of some kind on a regular basis...but it is more fun that way...